Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

RUSSIAN RAILWAYS IN CENTRAL ASIA. 377 M. de Lesseps’ plans of the ’sixties were pigeon-holed, but the line has recently been constructed. In 1881, Russia decided to adopt an alter- native route from the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea, through the country of the war- like Turcomans. As the building of a railway would mean much preliminary hard fighting, the business was put into the hands of Skobe- leff, the celebrated “ White General ” who had distinguished himself in the Russo-Turkish War of 1878, and had already tried conclusions with the Turcomans of the northern steppes. He selected as his base of operations the village of Uzun Ada, a small post opposite to Baku, of petroleum fame. At this place he collected an army and thou- The Conquest ganc[s of transport camels, of Türkistan. When all was ready, he flung his forces against the foe, routed them time after time, and sacked Geok Teppe, a fortress some 300 miles distant from the Caspian. The ground being cleared so far, General Annen- koff, a military engineer of wide experience, appeared on the scene, and soon had brought to Uzun Ada 100 miles of steel rails and 66 miles of narrow-gauge track. While Skobe- leff fought, Annenkoff and his railway gangs Engineering Difficulties. uninterrupted worked their hardest, to keep rail-head as near as possible to the invading army. So useful was the work done that the Russian Government decided to extend the first section of the line to the oasis of Kizil Arvat, which was reached in the year 1881. To this point the engineering difficulties to be overcome had been entirely climatic. The arid steppes were level and by rivers, so that little grading and no bridgework was re- quired. As a set-off against these natural advantages, the engineers had to face a great scarcity of water for men and locomotives, and the occurrence of storms which swept up the sand of the rolling dunes and de- posited it in waves along the track. The first difficulty was overcome by bringing salt water from the Caspian, and condensing it at points where it was needed. Later on, the condensing was done on the Caspian shore, and the sweet water transported in huge truncated pyramids of wood, each containing a thousand gallons, built up on wheeled plat- forms of proper gauge. At one time a train of forty or fifty of these tanks might be seen proceeding slowly across the steppes—a great obstacle to traffic on a line but poorly pro- vided with sidings. The prevention of encroachments by sand offered a problem more difficult to solve. Where water was plentiful—that is to say, for a comparatively small distance from the Caspian—the sand was liberally soaked and solidified, and covered by a blanket of clay. When water and clay failed, recourse was had to planting the sand hills on either side of the line with desert scrub, and erecting wooden palisades. But even these precautions did not